Day 27 100words100days Write a summary of a match/game (cricket, football, etc.)

Of all the football games I’ve ever watched, why did I choose the 2002 QF between England and Brazil? Possibly because it is the only game that ever inspired me to write a poem (a bit of free verse I scribbled in school, and was irritated with my classmates for reading).

The 2002 World Cup was the first time I watched a game of football on my own (hear the vuvuzelas!).

This hilarious commentary from The Guardian helped refresh my memory of this particular game.

141 words

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It’s 2002. The World Cup is on, the beautiful game being played in Japan and South Korea.

The group stage and first knockout stage are over and the quarter-finals have begun.

England is up against Brazil. Michael Owen puts England in the lead in the first half.

But that doesn’t last very long: Brazil, through the agency of Rivaldo, manages to equalize in the extra minutes before the half-time whistle.

And then, wonder of wonders, England rallies. You believed that, didn’t you? April Fool (in advance)!

No, England doesn’t rally. Ronaldinho scores for Brazil soon after play is resumed, and then he is sent off (for treading on someone, not for scoring the goal).

What else happens in the second half? England make a few half-hearted attempts, Scholes and Ferdinand get yellow cards, Beckham dives (apparently), England lose. Final score: Brazil 2- England 1.

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Turns out this was one of England’s better performances in the last twenty years.

Also- Scolari was the coach that helped Brazil lift the World Cup for the fifth time. Just saying.

Day 28- What if Hindi were the lingua franca instead of English?

Day 26 100words100days Build your own superhero(ine)

I couldn’t decide whether to make the superperson male or female. Then I thought- it doesn’t matter.

460 words.

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You don’t need to know my name. I can leap from tall buildings and soar through the sky, I can lift at least ten times my own weight, and I am brilliant. I have trained hard, studied harder and I have access to some fairly innovative tech, though I’m nowhere as cool in that respect as Iron Man.

Am I sexy? Do I have flowing locks or a transfixing stare or a ripped body? Am I black or white or somewhere in between? Am I rich or poor or middle-class? It doesn’t matter.

I can quote Shakespeare (whom I am not particularly fond of) and Rumi and Dickinson (Emily, for those who don’t know) and Angelou, while stopping criminal acts as they happen. (Often, the quotes are enough to make the perpetrators run away. Uncouth individuals!)

I can deliver a back kick that is a powerful deterrent to any future misdemeanours, and a graceful yet mighty uppercut.

My secret weapon is my long braid. It functions as a whip, or a lasso, or whatever else I can fashion out of it at a moment’s notice. (Yes, I use an amazing shampoo and conditioner, which shall remain secret like the KFC sauce mix. I also credit my weekly hot-oil scalp massage for the strength of my braid.)

Because of my ‘four eyes’, I also have the ability to discern when a person is making a mistake out of desperation, and when the cause of a crime is greed. Guess which one gets the harsher punishment.

And if you really piss me off, I will throw whatever I have in my hands at you, whether a basketball or a pair of knitting needles, with deadly accuracy.

What’s my back story? I’m no tortured soul a la Bruce Wayne, no experiment a la Bruce Banner, no demi-goddess a la Diana Prince (aka Wonder Woman). I’m just a human being who saw things going wrong in the world and decided to right them.

I make mistakes, but I can honestly say that I get things right more often than I get them wrong. I have days when I am so eaten up by remorse, or bruised by combat with a villain, that I can’t move forward, or go to my day job. My bosses are cool: they call these ‘duvet days’.

My costume depends on the season. I believe in dressing for comfort, so none of that skin-tight leather nonsense for me. Being aerodynamic is important; being able to breathe even more so. I favour greens, blues, and browns. There are no letters on my clothing to proclaim who I am, because really, I’m Every Person. I’m thinking of getting a tattoo that says that.

Join me in the fight for a better world.

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Thank you Commerce folk for your input (braid, basketball, nature)

Day 27: Write a summary of a match/game (cricket, football, etc.)

Day 25 100words100days Retell a classic in words of one syllable

Ai caramba! Using words of one syllable only is HARD! It forces you to think of ways around the simplest multi-syllabic words, such as brother, sister, people. But what do you do about names?

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery is one of my favorite reads. Apologies for making this wonderful story sound as dry as a bad translation! (151 words)

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Young Anne lost her mum and dad when she was just a tot. She spent most of her life in homes where she worked hard, but was not loved a whole lot. But she could make up worlds in her mind in which her life was less of a pain.

She had red hair, which she didn’t like, and she loved to talk.

One day, she was sent to a farm to help the folk who lived there. They thought they would be sent a boy, but they got Anne in place of a boy. They soon chose to keep her.

Anne worked hard. She loved to read books and write small tales of her own. She did well in school, she made good friends and had to deal with the loss of a loved one.

She was not good all the time, but then no person in the world is.

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Day 26: Build your own superhero(ine)

Day 24 100words100days Fracture a fairytale

426 words- yay! A twist in the tale of Snow White.

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Era uma vez, a baby with raven black hair,  pale white skin, and lips as red as scarlet roses was born to a royal couple. This babe never met her mother, because the unfortunate lady passed away soon after she brought her daughter Raven Black into the world.

Raven was a typical child: she played with swords and dolls, ran around her castle, and had moments of both pronounced masculinity and pronounced femininity.

Her father could not bear to see his child not take to the role of simpering princess, so he sent her off into the Forest hoping she would learn to be more docile from the harsh experience. He told his daughter that the idea was her stepmother’s, an unkind untruth that broke his new wife’s heart.

As she wandered through the forest, little Raven came across a little house in which seven men lived together. They couldn’t help it- the rent on the house was fairly economical. It was better than a bed-space arrangement in the crowded city of the Forest. They could only spare a little drawer for her to sleep in, which she graciously accepted.

One day, when she was out collecting mushrooms and weeds for their paleo supper, she found a juicy Granny Smith. Raven, being the child she was, took a bite of the apple without washing it first. This was a big mistake. The apple still had pesticide residue on it and Raven began vomiting violently. She passed out (not away), the apple rolling under a bush where it decayed and that was the end of the GMO pesticide-laden fruit. One of the seven men found Raven, and carried her home, weeping as un-creepily as he could.

She was kept alive in a magically-induced coma. The inhabitants of the Forest hoped she would wake, but they didn’t know what remedy would work. You see, none of them knew what had caused her to faint (the apple having rolled out of sight).

A precocious male child heard the tale of the undead royal Raven. He got on his high horse and gallopped to where she was being cared for. He jumped down, swung his cape over his shoulder, and strode over to her bed. He knelt down beside her and placed a loud kiss on her scarlet lips.

Raven Black immediately awoke. She sat up straight in bed, coughed up the apple piece, slapped the male child, and shoved the fruit bit into his mouth. She shuddered. “Cooties”, she said, watching him as he lay unconscious on the floor.

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Day 25- Retell a classic in words of one syllable

Day 23 100words100days Write about a social issue from home in free verse.

172 words. I couldn’t pick just one topic. There’s a lot about my country that worries me.

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I’m from a land that is steeped in tradition,

A tea that has gone bitter from an infusion decades too long.

A civilization that’s survived for thousands of years,

We do not seem to want to thrive as a cohesive diverse group.

We will maintain the old ways! we thunder,

Clubbing over the head those who resist.

Do not preach to me of old ways, Guruji.

Some of the old ways are done for and yet you would cling to them:

Patriarchy, religious intolerance, moral policing.

Some of the old ways are worthy and yet you pay them no mind:

A love for nature, a welcoming society eager to learn, a stewardship of a nation.

You wish desperately for us not to -air quote- ape -end air quote- the West.

But your markers of progress are all market-based, just as in the First World

You want to join .

Dear India, to conclude- you get the same remarks as the rowdy kids:

“So much potential, not enough focus.” No air quotes this time.

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Day 24 Fracture a fairytale

Day 22 100words100days Come up with 10-20 metaphors/similes/sayings about anger

I think I sometimes set myself unnecessary and strange tasks. This one was a way to stretch the imagination. 115 words.

Which one(s) resonate(s) with you?

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Anger is a storm, with raging thunder and flashes of light. It can cause serious damage, it creates a lot of noise, and occasionally it brings snappy inspiration.

Anger is like a set of blinders on a horse: it limits your vision.

Anger is the sum of all events that precede it.

Anger is misdirected passion.

Anger is a misfiring neuron.

Anger is like a rainbow: it comes in many shades.

Anger is a boil on the back of your leg. You don’t see it grow, but man, can it make your life miserable!

Anger is personal.

Anger is loss and pain rolled into a tiny, heavy, pulsating spheroid.

Anger is a catalyst for change.

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Day 23: Write about a social issue from home in free verse.

Day 21 100words100days Grease from Rizzo’s point of view

I’ve always liked Rizzo. She’s a tough cookie. 130-odd words.

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Who is this blonde? Traipsing in here with her flouncy skirt, thinking she’s in love. Love. Ha! She doesn’t know these fellas like I do. I know that there’s only one thing they are interested in- their hair. And if there’s another thing, it’s girls. Not one girl. GIRLS.

Sure, I’ve been out with a couple of these clowns. So what? A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Or in my case, a Pink Lady. I sure don’t act like a lady. And why should I? I don’t get anything by flouncing around in pastels. Black is good on me.

People think I’m mean. I’m not. I’m a realist.

Who cares if Danny wants to run around after whats-her-face? Let him. As long as she isn’t into Kenickie, I don’t care.

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Day 22: Come up with 10-20 metaphors/similes/sayings about anger

Day20 100Words100days Stumbling upon and past things on the Net, you discover a blog whose content resonates with you…

148 words in which I try to infuse a little optimism into the bleakness that is our world (if you read the news, you will agree that we seem to hear a lot of the bad, and not much of the good).

Tumblr account mentioned here is fictional. Perhaps someone will be inspired to create mentioned account. Author would be most grateful. And will now stop talking about herself in third person.

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I know we all go through moments of blinding happiness, when we feel like the world has been the best of friends to us. I know I frequently experience this. But no one ever talks about it. Which is why it was really nice to find, quite randomly, a tumblr called The Happy Teapot.

This person- male or female, I can’t tell, nor does it matter- posts pretty regularly about things that make her/him happy. Not just content. Not just humdrum run of the mill so-this-made-me-smile posts, but real, genuine, heart-bursting-with-joy blurbs and pictures. The occasional filter, though most images are raw and untamed. You feel the positivity seeping out of every single word.

I don’t know how such riotous joy is sustainable. But I’m glad there are some people out there who want to celebrate the good in the world instead of being parasites of the bad.

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Day 21: Grease from Rizzo’s point of view.

A musical, you say? Well, let us see…

Day19 100words100days Write a how-to for kids

How useful it is to have an elder sibling! There is much wisdom to be gained from dealing with one. (Which must mean that the more elder siblings one has, the wiser one ought to be).

274 words written with my not-so-wee-any-longer cousins in mind. Much love! And please don’t tell your parents I told you to do this!

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How to borrow your siblings’ books without them finding out

Drawing on my own extensive experience, and several failed attempts at this during my childhood, I have put together this little set of instructions. Please remember that this manual deals with physical books only. Do not try this with an e-reader of any sort! I will not be held responsible for the whacking you get.

We begin with the easy part which is getting the book. I can only hope you usually ask your brothers or sisters if you can borrow their books. Sometimes they aren’t home, or they are busy doing something very important. It is at times like these that you cannot ask them for their permission (because you know they will just scream at you anyway).

Take the book from wherever it is. If you can’t finish reading it at one go, make sure you put it back before they notice, and then borrow it again, and return it, and so on, until you finish reading it.

Never do any of the following:

– Lend the book to someone else (if it gets lost, you will have to answer to your sibling.)

– Put the book back in the wrong spot (they know, trust me.)

– Spill anything on the book (no tea, coffee, chocolate, curry, etc. Water might go unnoticed, because it dries up. But sometimes it leaves a wrinkly watermark. Be careful.)

– Tear any pages, or mark any words or passages (unless you want to get caught.)

– Bring the book up in a conversation with the sibling you “borrowed” it from (their eyes will narrow and they will stare at you suspiciously.)

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Tomorrow- Day 20- Stumbling upon and past things on the Net, you discover a blog whose content resonates with you…

Day 18 100words100days A conversation between a noun and a pronoun

A little dark grammar humour. 116 words of it.

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Noun had had enough of Pronoun’s emphasis on itself.  “You wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me!” it screamed.

Pronoun looked nonchalantly at Noun. “And you would not be able to refer to yourself if it weren’t for me”, it responded.

Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition and Conjunction thought it would be best if they left what had become a very awkward Parts of Speech meeting. They inched toward the door.

“Don’t move”, said Pronoun coldly. “Noun is the one who should leave. We don’t need it. What good is a precedent, anyway?”

Noun scrunched up its face. “Fine! Let us- We’ll- ARGH! See how this group functions without me!”

Pronoun smirked. “That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

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Pronoun sounds evil. Noun’s a bit of  a drama royal. You’d think Verb would get involved, being an action word and all. English grammar and all its exceptions, I tell you.

Day 19: a how-to for kids